Home

Hong Kong International Film Festival

Description
Founded in 1976, the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) is Asia’s oldest international film festival and a pioneer in introducing Hong Kong, Chinese language and Asian cinema and filmmakers to the world.

Its major retrospectives and bi-lingual publications on Hong Kong cinema have helped establish Hong Kong movies on the international stage; and its programming of Asian films have inspired many other film festivals.

Annually screening over 280 titles from more than 50 countries in over 10 major cultural venues across the territory, the Festival is Hong Kong’s largest cultural event that reaches an audience of over 600,000, including 7,000 business executives who attend the Hong Kong International Film & Television Market (FILMART), a concurrent event of the HKIFF.

The festival features world and international premiers of Hong Kong and Asian films, and Asian premiers of international films. The festival has maintained its founding premise of bringing films to local audiences that they might not be aware of, and of introducing Hong Kong, Chinese language, and Asian films to the world. The festival has an extensive track record in presenting new Asian films and filmmakers from the Hong Kong New Wave filmmakers like Ann Hui, Tsui Hark and Allen Fong, and Philippines masters Lino Brocka and Mike de Leon in the late 1970s, through the Chinese new waves of Taiwan filmmakers Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang, and Fifth Generation of Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou in the 1980s, to contemporary game changers like Apitchatpong Weerathasakul, the HKIFF is a chronicle of the development and discovery of modern Asian cinema. The festival also regularly hosts major international filmmakers and stars. Recent guests include Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Piolo Pascual, Pedro Costa, Lav Diaz, Peter Greenaway, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Bela Tarr.

The Festival draws extensive media coverage from over 500 local and international press members and continues to grow in importance as one of the premier platforms to launch films in Asia.